Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Time... time.... time... I have not been posting and I'm sorry for it, but I have discovered this little known thing called Facebook and have been essentially spending my few free moments on there now instead of keeping up my blog. Facebook just makes it too easy to keep up with EVERYONE all at once. For those of you who have the ability to keep up with multiple playgroup message boards, blogs, facebook, and all the other things, my hats off to you. I don't know how you do it. :) Now back to my thoughts on Praise.

I have heard a lot about how child development classes are teaching people that you shouldn't over praise children. That it will teach them to listen to other peoples opinions or value of success more than their own. I have been praising Ari loads since she was little and have never given it much thought. After hearing all this I have been observing the interations as they occur and Ari's reaction to all the praise. Here is my conclusion...

Say what?? Too much praise is bad? Showing my child I value her successes is bad? Teaching children to want to please someone other than themselves some of the time is bad? We all know and see that children are inherently selfish beings when they first come out. The only thing they are focused on is themselves. It is nearly impossible for me to believe that through praise, these selfish beings will suddenly not care one iota about themselves and will just want to please others. I do see, that Ari is starting to want to please us some of the time, but I don't think that learning to please your parents some times is a bad thing. I remember when I was younger, the worst punishment I could get was when my parents said I disappointed them. That one, would sting for a long time while any groundings were just there and then not.

I hope that she does learn to please others sometimes and not just herself. I do make sure to sometimes throw in a "You must be so proud of yourself!" to emphasize for her that I hope she is also pleased, not just us, but why not do things to make others happy and proud some of the time. There are so many times we don't see and things we don't witness that there are plenty of opportunities for her to do things because it pleases her and no one else.

So I say... PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE!!! Hopefully, your child will learn there is balance in life between pleasing ourselves, pleasing others, and making our parents proud of us. What a great gift to give a child. :)

3 comments:

And, very, very bad of me (especially since I thought of you and Ari on January 8th and *still* didn't write----Happy, Happy Belated Birthday to Ari! 3 years old, I can hardly believe it. I hope you had a wonderful birthday celebration, wish we could have been there to give the birthday girl (and her Mama) a birthday hug. We sure do miss you.